Sinners and Saints

Heat. Heat. Welcome to Cross Church. My name's Tyler and I serve as campus pastor right here at Cross Church Elmarrage. And I want to welcome you to service today. Before we get started, I want to make you aware of a couple of ways that you can connect with us today. If you have a phone with you, you can send a text message with the word cross church, no space, to the number 9400. Or if you'd like to use the cards that are in the seat back in front of you, we've got three cards that'll direct you on ways that you can get connected this week. The first is the new card. If you're new to Cross Church over the last few weeks, we would love to connect with you. Take some time to fill out that card during our service today and drop it in one of the black boxes and then we'll follow up with you this week with some more information. The next card is the next card. Take some time to use that card if you're interested in taking some next steps in your faith journey. Things like baptism, joining a group, or even serving. And then lastly, and I believe most importantly, is the prayer card. And I want to guarantee you that if you take time today to fill out that prayer card, all of those come to me and I get to pray over each of them individually. So if you've got things big or small going on in your life, please feel free to share those with us. We'd be happy to pray over them. As we get prepared for some God-honoring worship, I want to encourage you to go into service today with an expectant spirit. We know that God will do big things in our midst. And so, I want to encourage you to enter this time with an expected spirit. Now, let's get prepared for some God. Hey, good morning everyone. Let's all stand together. Let's all get ready to worship. [Music] I saw Sing lighting. I saw darkness from cover but the miracle that I just can't get over. My name is registered in heaven. I believe in signs and wonders. I have resurrection power. Still the miracle that I just can't get over. My name is registered in heaven. Yeah. My grace belongs to you forever. This is my testimony. From death to life. Cuz grace rewrote my story. I'll testify. by Jesus Christ the righteous. I'm justified. This is my testimony. This is my testimony. [Music] Come together sons and daughters [Music] with blood and washed in water. Sing the praises of the spirit, son and father. Our God will finish what he started. Yes, our God will finish what he started. Oh, this is my testimony from dead to life. Cuz grace rewrote my story. I'll testify. But Jesus Christ the righteous. I'm justified. This is my testimony. This is my testimony. [Music] I'm not dead. You're not done. Greater things are still to come. Oh, I believe I'm not dead. You're not done. Greater things are still to come. Oh, I believe I'm not dead. You're not done. Greater things are still to come. Oh, I believe. If I'm not dead, you're not done. [Music] Greater things are still to come. Oh, I believe the best days are forever. [Music] This is my testimony. From dead to life cuz grace rewrote my story. I'm testify by Jesus Christ the righteous. I'm justified. This is my testimony. Oh, I'm alive. This is my testimony. from death to life. His grace renew my story. I'll testify by Jesus Christ the righteous. I'm justified. This is my testimony. This is my testimony. [Music] Oh my god. [Music] Yeah. Let's give our God some praise. [Music] There's peace that outlasts darkness. Hope that's in the blood. this future grace that's mine today that Jesus Christ has won so I can face tomorrow for tomorrow's in your hands and all I need you will provide just like you [Music] I'm fighting a battle. You've already won. No matter what comes my way. I will overcome. Don't know what you're doing, but I know what you've done. I'm fighting a battle. You've already won. Oh, [Music] there's mercy in the waiting. man for today. And when it's gone, I know you're not. You are my hope and stay. When the sea is raging, your spirit is my help. He'll fix my eyes on Jesus Christ. I'll say that it is well. Oh, I know that it is well. Oh, I'm fighting a battle. You've already won. No matter what comes my way, I will overcome. Don't know what you're doing, [Music] but I know what you've done. Thank you, God. I'm fighting a battle. You've already won. We have hope only because of him. So, let's sing. I know how the story ends. And I know how the story ends. We will be with you again. You're my savior, my defense. No more fear in life or death. Come on, let's sing that again. And I know how the story ends. We will be with you. We will be with you again. You're my savior and you're my savior, my defense. No more fear, no more fear in life or death. And with everything we've got, let's sing this out. And I know how the story ends. [Music] We will be with you. We will be with you again. You're my savior. You're my savior, my dearest. [Music] And no more fear, no more fear in life or death. And I know how the story ends. [Music] I'm fighting a battle. You've already won. [Music] No matter what comes my way, I will overcome. Don't know what you're doing. But I know what you've done. Oh, thank you, God. I'm fighting a battle. You've already won. Wo! I'm fighting a battle. You've already won. Oh, [Music] cuz you've already won. Oh. [Music] Yes, he's already won. Jesus has already won and it's only because of what he did on the cross. Jesus, thank you for the blood. Thank you for saving us. I was a wretch. I remember who I was. I was lost. I was blind. I was running out of time. Sin separated. The breach was far too wide. But from the far side of the chasm, you held me in your sight. So you made a way across the great divide. Left behind heaven's throne to build it here inside. And there at the cross, you paid the debt. that I owed. Broke my chains, freed my soul. For the first time I had hope. Thank you Jesus for the blood applied. Thank you Jesus. It has washed me white. Thank you Jesus. You have saved my life, brought me from the darkness into glorious light. [Music] You took my place, laid inside my tomb of chasing. You were buried for three days. But then you walked right out again. And now death has no sting. And life has no way. For I have been transformed by the blood of the lamb. Thank you Jesus for the blood of life. Thank you Jesus. It has washed me white. Thank you Jesus. You have saved my life. Brought me from the darkness into glorious light. There is nothing stronger than the wonder working power of the blood. The blood that calls us sons and daughters. We are ransomed by the father through the blood. I'm alive. [Music] There is nothing stronger than the one to work in power of the blood. The blood that calls us sons and daughters. We are ransom by our father through the blood. The blood. Thank you Jesus for the blood of life. Thank you Jesus. It has washed me white. Thank you Jesus. You have saved my life. [Music] Brought me from the darkness into glorious light. Gloryy to his name. Glory to his name. There to my heart was the blood applied. Glory to his name. Amen. What a great time to start our time of worship together. You can go ahead and grab a seat. And as you do so, I want to remind you about those three cards that are in the seat back in front of you. But before we get to that, I just want to introduce myself. My name is Tyler. I serve as campus pastor right here at Cross Church El Mirage. And whether you're here in the room or watching online, we're so glad that you've joined us this Fourth of July weekend. And I want to let you know about a few things that are coming up. But before we do that, the cards that are on the seat back in front of you, there's a few different cards. They're pretty self-explanatory. The first card is the new card. So maybe if you're joining us for the first, second, or third time, uh we would encourage you to fill that out. Here's what it does. We won't spam you, but we do want to connect with you, maybe give you some resources, answer any questions that you may have about the church. So do us a favor. If you're relatively new to Cross Church, take some time to fill out that new card and then drop it in one of the boxes at the end of service. The other card that you'll see is the next card. And the next card is helpful if you want to take some next steps. So, uh, pull that card out. One of the things that's on there is things like baptism. We have things like Bible groups. Those are all great ways for you to get connected and for you to take some next steps in your faith. So, if you're looking for some of those, take some time, fill that card out, drop it in the box later in our services as well. And then lastly, and I believe most important is the prayer card. Uh we know that there is a lot going on and so if you do us a favor, if you've got a prayer request, big or small, take some time to fill that card out and then you can drop it in the back in those black boxes as well. It would be our honor to pray over the cards that you would be happy to submit there. You can also do all of those things digitally by texting the word crossurch with no space to the number 9400. Maybe you can save a tree or something. Or it's just easier, you can text that number to do all of those same things online. Hey, there's a few things coming up over the next couple of weeks I want to let you know about. First, next Sunday is going to be amazing. All right. Uh we got a couple of great things planned. The first is that next Sunday we're having baptism. And I got to tell you guys, um yeah, we could clap for that. One person claps. One person excited. No. Here's the deal. Um it has been an incredible joy to celebrate baptism as a church. One of the things that's happened is we've gotten to celebrate a lot of baptisms over this last year and a half and we're going to continue that next week. So, two things. Number one, if you're interested in taking that next step, you can come and find one of us as leaders. We'd be happy to help you. Or you can go online to cross church crosschurchcares.comvents. You can register online, but that'll be both next week at our 9 and 10:30 services. And then also, if you're coming next week, get ready to celebrate with us. We know that this is not just dunking people in water. This is a celebration of life change. So, come next week, prepare for all of that. And then also next Sunday, we've got the second installment of our summer series. And I got to tell you, we did that a couple of weeks ago and it was an absolute blast. So, we'll have a few different water slides out for all the different ages. The lemonade bar will be out there. It'll be a blast. Here's the thing, though. Uh, one of my favorite things that happens is not only having fun, letting the kids play and all that good stuff, but is the relationships that we get to build there. So, come next week, plan to spend some extra time, hang out with us, and hey, maybe even the adults will get on the water slide. We'll see. We'll see. But that'll be next week. And one of the things I want to celebrate is what happens in our collective of churches. We are one of four uh cross churches here in the state of Arizona. And we don't do what we do alone. And I want to tell you, uh, you'll see a picture here in just a second of our kids camp that just wrapped up this week. Uh, our group is represented here. And it is so incredible for us as a church to be a part of something bigger. If you see a kid wearing one of their kids camp shirts today, go up, ask them how their experience was. We prayed for them, and now we get to celebrate with them all that God's doing in their lives. And hey, I got to tell you, things like baptism and kids camp don't happen without your generosity. And so what we're going to do now, we're going to take about 30 seconds and give you an opportunity to prayerfully consider giving while the options are here on the screen. So take a second to consider that [Music] [Music] Well, hey, uh, long time no see, but hey, we are diving into second Corinthians chapter 2. So, if you got a Bible, I want to encourage you to open that, flip there, click there, make your way somehow to 2 Corinthians chapter 2. As you do that, um, welcome. We're so excited that you're here. It's been really cool to see what's happened the last couple weeks. Last week, we had Pastor Jackie. He did amazing. Texted me afterwards. It was so cool to see him be able to be here and to preach. And then two weeks ago, we had Jav who preached and just crushed it. Uh I got to tell you, it is no small thing for a church like ours to be able to have so many gifted preachers and God to do so many amazing things. So, we're super thankful for that. And this week, you're stuck with me. So, I'm sorry. I'll apologize for that. 2 Corinthians chapter 2. As you make your way there, I do want to open our time together in prayer. As you may well know uh in around Austin, Texas, there's been a lot of flooding, not just small flooding, but incredible catastrophic flooding. So, I want to take just one second because we believe in the power of prayer uh to pray for that area and all that God's doing there. So, let's start with that before we dive into the message. Uh God, we come to you understanding that you are sovereign over it all. what we perceive as the good and the bad, the things that catch us off guard. And so God, specifically today, we pray for all of those who are experiencing loss, whether it's loss of property or lives or all different number of things. God, we specifically pray for those that are experiencing loss, knowing that what's happening in Texas, God, is no small thing. Uh and so, God, we pray for those experiencing loss that they would experience your peace and your comfort. uh one that is uh not based on circumstances or what's happening around us, but is based on our relationship with you. So, we pray that they would experience that comfort. God, we also want to lift up to you the first responders in the area that are dealing with uh the um honestly, God, that the burden that just seems unbearable, all that they're facing there and the rebuilding efforts. So, God, we just pray for all of those that are spending time and energy and effort there. We just uh God ask that you would give them strength and courage, but also that you would protect them and their spirits as they face really some dark and sad things. God, we pray that you would protect them. Pray all of this in your name. Amen. Amen. Second Corinthians chapter 2, we're in a series that we are calling rooted in holiness. And so as we dive in today, uh I want to ask you a question. What is the best gift you've ever received? the best gift. All right, could be the most expensive gift you've ever received. It could be uh the one that involved the most time. Um it could be uh the one that had the most thought behind it, right? That somebody just knew exactly what you wanted. I was thinking about the best gifts I've received. One of my favorites is uh quite a few years back I received um you guys, young people may not recognize this, the original Xbox as a gift I received, which was amazing. Um, I thought it could get no better. Technology could never get better. And now that thing is so obsolete, right? But here's the deal. Uh, I remember getting that and thinking, "This is amazing." And you know what happened after like a year or two? That thing was out the door, right? Even the best gift at the time didn't last. And then I think back to as a young adult, the favorite gift that I've ever received. Um, we could disagree on this, but you'll be wrong, right? So, let's just be clear. I'll set some ground rules. I received what I believe to be the greatest gift, which was tickets from my now wife as we were dating uh to go and see the King George Strait in concert. And uh some of you looked at me like that is the worst gift. I'm sorry. All right, but here's the deal. I loved it. Um it's super basic. He literally just stands on a stool or sits on a stool. You don't stand on a stool. That'd be weird. U but he sits on a stool, plays the guitar, turns, plays the song, plays the song, and it was amazing. I'll never forget receiving that gift. And here's the deal. It's my deep belief, as we're going to study today in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, that the church, what we are a part of right here, is a gift. It is a blessing. It has been designed with a purpose. However, sometimes things go wrong. Amen. Sometimes things don't always go according to plan, and you have to pivot and address things as they pop up. And that's actually what we're going to find here is that while the church is a gift, uh what we experience is out of first Corinthians, Paul, the author of both first and second Corinthians, calls us mere humans. And I don't know if you guys know this, but we are not perfect. All right? And if you don't believe that, ask the person to your left or right. They'll let you know. All right? They're like, "You are not perfect." Right? And we are just mere humans. And so, we experience issues. We have to address things as they come up. And so 2 Corinthians, I believe, is going to give us here in chapter 2 a playbook for how to address issues between people. So let's start reading. We'll start reading in verse 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 2:5 says this. If anyone has caused pain, he has caused pain, not so much to me, but to some degree, not to exaggerate, to all of you. This punishment by the majority is sufficient for that person. As a result, you should instead forgive and comfort him. Otherwise, he may be overwhelmed by excessive grief. Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. I wrote you for this purpose to test your character to see if you are obedient in everything. Anyone you forgive, I do too. For what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it is for your benefit in the presence of Christ so that we may not be taken advantage of by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his schemes. And we'll take a pause there as we walk through this text. This first set of verses, this first introductory sort of thought here seems like we're walking into uh what uh Twitter used to call subtweeting, right? where you're talking about someone without using their name or tagging them. This seems as though Paul is writing about a specific person and trying to talk about how the situation's being handled. And let me just confirm that he is. If you will uh briefly look at 1 Corinthians 5 or just listen, I I'll read this. Um there's Paul and he is addressing a specific situation. And so there's some connection in the language here that makes me believe what's happening in 1 Corinthians 5 is connected to chapter 2 that we're studying here. Here's the short story. There's someone in the church doing some things that aren't godly. And even if they were, it's terrible. All right, this guy's doing some jacked up messed up stuff. All right. And so to put it shortly, they are to sort of kick him out of the church, exercise church discipline in 1 Corinthians 5. And what happens is Paul is circling back to that moment with an update, if you will. And here's what he begins by saying in verse 5. He talks about the idea that if someone has caused pain to one person in the church, he says, not to exaggerate, but it's impacted all of the church. And I don't know if you know this um but what happens to one person or the actions of one person in a church impact the bigger group. This is something that we don't take lightly as a church. That's why much like in 1 Corinthians 5, we want to address things as they come up because we know that as the body of Christ, the actions of one impact the actions of others. If you've ever made a recipe and accidentally put the wrong ingredient in, even in a small dose, it makes a big difference, right? Those things matter. And so for us today, what we're going to find is walking out of this text, there's some application points. But I want to begin by sort of understanding the situation that we face. And the first topic as we walk through this text that we begin to understand is the sin. The sin is the first focus of this text. It is the specific situation that we're addressing here. And the sin that we see is the way that the church is handling the issues of the one. What happened is the church has done what they should have. Paul confirms that in verse six, the punishment by the majority is sufficient for that person. But what he says in verse seven, I don't want you to miss. As a result, you should instead forgive and comfort him. What he tells us is what you did initially is correct. Good job, but time out. That's enough. We're not beating a dead horse on this one. He says, "You've you've done the right thing." It's what we talk about often here, the balance of truth and love. They've given truth. They've addressed a situation, but Paul says, "Don't forget the critical component of love. You must still love this person." That's why it's my deep personal belief that even in situations where church discipline is used, it is always for the sake of restoration, of pointing people back to Jesus, back to the church, back to their faith. And Paul tells us here, love is important. He says you should forgive and comfort him. Otherwise, he may be overwhelmed by grief. Understand grief is not the end goal. Forgiveness and restoration is. And so Paul reminds us in verse eight to reaffirm your love to him. And then he goes on to talk about some details. But the issue of sin in the church is not a one-off thing. It is a common thing in the church. There are people who have inherently issues, right? We all have things that we deal with and we bring all of our stuff together. Oftentimes our baggage and our struggles and our sin and all of this stuff together. And one of the things that happens is that sin can cause problems as it often does. And so I want to give you three different ways that sin can cause problems in our churches. The first thing that we see that sin does is sin distracts. Now, let me be clear about sin. Sin is anything that you or I do that's outside the will of God for our lives. Anything that is commanded in scripture, we don't do or is forbidden in scripture that we do do. Those things are sin. And what happens often as we see here in second Corinthians 2 is that sin distracts us. Paul is spending critical time in this letter addressing people problems. Understand the main goal, the main focus of our church is not just other people. It is Jesus. And so when sin happens, it distracts us from what we should be focused on and puts our focus on our sin. Sin distracts us. In the Garden of Eden, what do we notice? Eve gets distracted. And don't miss when she gets tempted. It's not the outright big, crazy, bold story that Satan uses to tempt Eve and to distract her. He uses a little phrase. Did God really say? It is not outright denial that she's being tempted with. It's just distraction. It's just a little bit of lack of focus. And ultimately, that little lack of focus can lead to a real issue. I was on an airplane recently, and I'm a bit of a nerd. It comes and goes, but sometimes when I'm a nerd and I'm on an airplane, I like to watch the cockpit view of the airplane so that I can see where I'm headed, how fast we're going, why we aren't going faster, how high in the air we're at, so I know when we begin to make our initial descent. Now, they may be lying to me about the numbers, but I'm like kind of watching this stuff. One of the things I noticed this last week as we were on some airplanes is that if you look from the cockpit view, Los Angeles and Seattle as you're headed west, look pretty close. But if you are a little bit distracted over the course of three hours as you fly west from the east coast, you could end up in Seattle and not in Los Angeles, which is vastly different, right? You've got to be laser focused to end up where you want to be. And what happens is sin gets us distracted. In the Garden of Eden, it was first the line, did God really say, "Eve is gone and then Adam is gone." And we've been getting distracted ever since. Sin often distracts us and it keeps us from God's best in our lives. So, we have to be incredibly mindful understanding that sin distracts us. The second thing that I don't want you to miss is that sin distances us. It distracts us from the main thing, but it also distances us. Now, let me sort of help you to understand this. Um, the way that sin distances us is oftentimes subtle. Much like the phrase, did God really say, the idea of us being distanced when we sin? Is this when we struggle with sin? And I'm speaking from being a pastor and having experience in churches. When people are struggling in their faith, most often they're mad at God, but they also distance themselves from the church and their friends from church. All right? Why? Because much like in the Garden of Eden, when we experience shame, we want to hide ourselves. We want to lean back and not lean forward. However, when we're struggling with sin, we don't want to throw our dirty laundry out in front of everyone all the time. However, it is our relationship with Christ and biblical healthy community that we need to lean into in those moments. It's when we struggle that we need other believers to help pick us up and to point us on the right path. It's when we're struggling in our faith that we need to pray and ask God for strength and ask God for guidance and protection and leadership. We have to understand naturally sin distances us. Jesus in his very nature wants to have community with us. Jesus does something that I don't think we should miss. He made it a regular rhythm before going out and being a part of the crowds to pull himself back and spend time in prayer. He made time with God a valuable piece of his life, even as a member of the Trinity. And it should be even more so important for us. And what we need to do is really avoid the spiritual hokeyp pokei. Let me explain the hokeyp pokei. You put your left hand in and then you put your left hand. Okay, two of you have heard of the hokeyp pokei. That was great. All right, you're really into it today. All good. You put your left hand in, then put your left hand. Awesome. You're on it. Here's the deal. Here's what we often do. We have moments in life where we lean into our relationship with God and we're spending time praying and we're following Jesus. And then something bad happens and we lean back. We're like, I'm uncomfortable. I'm struggling. I don't want to spend time at church. I feel a little bit of shame or anger. Whatever. I lean back. And I do it, too. It's in those very moments that we need to lean in and understand the spiritual hoke pokey doesn't lead us closer to Jesus. So when you sing that song later and it's stuck in your head, just know sin distances us. The third thing we see about sin is that sin disrupts. Now I need to give a caveat to this. I believe that sin disrupts what God is doing and what God wants for us. But I also believe firmly without a doubt that God is sovereign. Nothing catches him off guard. He is aware of our sins, past, present, future, all of it. He understands all of it. And so the the thing I think we have to be careful of is that sin disrupts. It can get in the way of what God's doing. And can I just take a moment to brag on you? You are a part of an incredible move of God. The story that's being written on the corner of Peoria and Elmarrage that you are a part of is incredible. We're going to see in the next six months another church launched in our area. And we're going to see God continue to move in lives and we're going to see different preachers and we're going to see things like vacation Bible school and baptism and kid all these incredible things and we are here for it. My fear though is that sin disrupts it. If we let our personal struggles get in the way individually and collectively, what we see in 2 Corinthians 2 is that can disrupt what God's doing in our midst. We want to be laserfocused on what God's doing, what God's calling us to do. So, understand that sin disrupts. However, there's a positive note in this text that we're studying today, and that is that there is a solution. All right? There is a solution to be found. Um, in this text, Paul not only talks about what's already happened and how it's being dealt with, gives them some instruction, but he talks about his personal life. And in doing so, he lays a foundation for us of the solution. And so I want to give you three points under the solution that I think are ways we can resolve together to have an impact. And the first thing that we can do is resolve to be focused to be focused. Um one of the things that I know to be true is when you get a group of people together in a room like this that come from different backgrounds that are at different stages in life is we all see things differently which is a gift from God. We're so thankful for the diversity of our church. However, sometimes that means we can lack focus. So, let me just take about 30 seconds, maybe more, um, to share what we are headed towards as a church. We are a year and a half old as a church. And we're a part of a crossurch, which is a group of churches both here in Arizona and around the world that seek to do three words, make Jesus known. That's it. That's our guiding phrase. It's in our uh sort of pizza with a pastor class. It's what we focus on. It guides everything that we do. The focus of our lives is to make Jesus known. We want to do that individually and collectively. If you are experiencing something, God's calling you to something and if it makes Jesus known, you got a green light from us. Go and do it. And we want to be a part of it. But understand this, while we do that, everything else is secondary to that. But here's what's happening. If churches aren't focused, sin can distract. If we aren't focused on the main thing, we can get distracted. We can get torn over all different number of things. So my encouragement to you, to myself, is to resolve to be focused. The second thing that we can do in terms of a resolution, if you will, is resolve to be forgiving. Paul tells us about this exactly in verse 7. As a result, you should instead forgive and comfort him. Share the truth. Don't let people live in their sin and struggle forever. Tell them the truth, but then forgive them and move on. But here's what often happens. We want to hold on to that so we can have a leg up on someone. We do it in relationships, in friendships, in family circles, even in churches like this, in businesses. It happens everywhere. We don't want to forgive people because we want to have a leg up on them. We want to have leverage against people. But Paul calls us here to forgive and then to reaffirm our love. He gives us this roadmap. So, we ought to resolve to be forgiving. And as a matter of fact, God in his kindness uh gave me a sermon illustration on this a few hours ago this morning. Um, it wasn't so good. I'm kind of getting over it. All right, we're moving on. All right, but this morning, uh, get up. Every Sunday morning, I get up early. It's my routine every single Sunday. I get up, look through the sermon, I'm on my computer, kind of type some final notes, maybe adjust some wording on some things, and get everything locked in for the message on Sunday. So, I'm sitting there doing that. When I do that, I have my water, I have my coffee, I get locked in, focused, right? So, I was doing that this morning when my son, who's three, noticed the bowl of chocolate chip cookies on the counter. And as every g good kid would do, was like, "Dude, breakfast." So, he picks them up, walks over to me, and when he says, "Dad," the cookie bowl hits my water, which dumps a full glass of water on my computer. Yeah. Yeah. Really excited about that. All right. Which in the moment, what do I feel? Anger. Yes. I'm ticked. Like, bro, what are you doing? But you know what? He didn't mean it. It was an accident. It's a really annoying and expensive accident, but it was an accident. One that I'm still walking through. I'll get there. Right. So, if you know any tricks to get a soaked, not just wet, soaked computer, dry rice, I don't know. Let me know your secrets later. But, but I had a reminder this morning that forgiveness can be difficult. This series that we're calling Rooted and Holiness reminds me of how forgiveness works. Because here's what happens often. We we try to get that leverage. We address some things on a surface level, but we leave a root of unforgiveness in our lives or we hold on to something and then the vegetation, it just continues to pop up and if we're not careful, that root of unforgiveness can cause us to struggle. It reminds me of the story of the prodigal son. If you've read the story out of Luke 15, there's a father who has two sons. One of them says basically, I wish you were dead. Give me my inheritance. Now the father does. Splits his assets. Gives half of it to this son who goes and squanders them in a foreign country. Has a moment of clarity. Comes back home. The father restores him, welcomes him completely, forgives him, puts a ring on his finger, restores him to his position, and throws a party. And in doing so, in verse 23, we often miss this. The son that didn't leave, who stayed there, is outside of the party, I imagine, with his arms folded, fuming. So, the father leaves the party, goes to talk to him. The son who stayed is mad. And the father has to give him a a bit of clarity, a reminder, because his jealousy, his anger, his root of unforgiveness was still buried. He was holding on to it. It was causing him anger and frustration. The father has to remind him that forgiveness is good. And a lost son being found is worth celebrating and worth forgiving. Can I just tell you today, holding on to unforgiveness and anger does you no good. It might seem like it'll feel good, but forgiveness is always the best play, even inside the church. So, we ought to resolve to be forgiving. Jesus reminds us to turn the other cheek. And in Luke 23, he illustrates this. He shows us the application of this. When he's going to be put to death on a cross, what does he use? He says, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they're doing." In his darkest moment, he's still forgiving people. But what do you and I do? We try to hold on to it. Let's resolve to be forgiving. Third, let's resolve to be faithful. Let's resolve to be faithful people. In 2 Corinthians 2, what happens is the focus is not on the forgiveness. It starts there, but then as he gets to the end of the passage, he's going to talk about being faithful. In verse 13, he says this, "I had no rest." This is Paul, "In my spirit because I didn't find my brother Titus. Instead, I said goodbye to them and left for Macedonia." Which, if you're reading this, you're like, "Thanks for giving me your travel plans." All right. to catch you up to speed. Paul is an early day church planter. So, he's planting a church and going to the next place. He's like all the hippies nowadays that live in a van and travel the world. All right, it's really cool now. And you start a YouTube channel and you get famous. All right, back then Paul did it and he was writing letters. All right, there was no YouTube then. And so he says, "Hey, I had a purpose to be here. I didn't find Titus, so I'm going on to the next thing." He has resolved to be faithful. He understands that he bears the weight of responsibility as the planter of this church for their spiritual good. So he writes this letter. And for me, it's a reminder that we have to understand where we're at, the season that we're in, and resolve to be faithful. It is our aim and goal to hear the words that we see in Matthew 25. Well done, good and faithful servant. Let me remind you of this. Well done, good and faithful servant is clear in a full sentence. It is not well done good and rich servant. It is not well done good and faithful or famous. It is faithful. It actually does say faithful. It's not well done good and famous servant. It's well done good and faithful servant. We are called to follow Jesus well and to forgive others and to do it for the long hall. Resolve to be faithful. I was uh studying some stuff recently around a sunken uh cost argument. And one of the fallacies around sunken costs is that if you dropped a bunch of money into something is that if you continue to drop money into it, it'll get better. All right? That's like project cars, right? Or um you know, projects in your home and you're dumping money and trying to fix it and it's at some point you got to cut your bait. You you just got to move on, right? Don't continue to drop money and time and energy into something if it's not worth it. And for us sometimes we resolve to be faithful to the wrong things. But Paul reminds us here to be faithful to the right things. He had a purpose for a season. He accomplished it. He moved on and he continued to write letters. So let's resolve to be faithful. And then we see the finale here that comes in the last few verses. I want to read for you in verse 14 what it says. I think Paul does such a great job with this. He says this phrase, "But thanks be to God who always leads us in Christ's triumphal procession. Through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of him in every place. For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To some we are an aroma of death leading to death, but to others an aroma of life leading to life." Who is adequate for these things? In verse 17, for we do not market the word of God for profit like so many. On the contrary, we speak with sincerity in Christ as from God and before God. Let me remind you as we begin to wrap this text up. The focus is third on the Savior. The aim, the reason we do what we do is to make Jesus known. He is the focus of everything. At the end of our lives, the goal is to serve Jesus well. And so for us, the reminder of the savior here offers us three pieces of application. First, that Christ is the starting line of our faith. He is the starting line. Our process, our spiritual journey begins at salvation. It's the moment when we say yes to Jesus, when we accept God's free gift of salvation, as Romans 6:23 paints it for us. That salvation moment is when we begin to follow Jesus. The second step is the process called sanctification, which is a really fancy word that means to become more and more like Jesus on a consistent basis. It starts at salvation and it doesn't end until we see Jesus face to face in heaven. The process of sanctification has highs and lows but Christ is at the starting line. That process ends in glorification someday in heaven. Understand this. Jesus is at the starting line because it is based on his sacrifice that we can even begin the faith. The second thing we see is that Christ is on the front lines with us. We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. And do not miss this. We do not fight our battles alone. We do so with the power of the Holy Spirit in us. We don't do so with our own weapons. We've been given spiritual gifts so that we can access God's power to do what only God can do through us. Understand Christ is on the front lines with us. I don't know if you guys are into sports, but I love sports. And uh something was discovered in downtown Oklahoma City about a week ago officially. It said in downtown Oklahoma City on Reno Avenue, there is the best NBA team in the nation. It's the Oklahoma City Thunder. Why? Because they won a championship. Now, here's what happened last Monday when they won the championship. I celebrated as if I was out there on the court shooting threes, getting rebounds, but I did nothing to get the victory. However, I celebrated like I was a part of it. All right? I identified with the team. For us, the understanding is that Christ is on the front lines. We identify with him. It's because his strength that we're victorious. He's the author and perfector of our faith. And so, we get to celebrate his work even though we did none of it. Christ is on the front lines. Finally, and most importantly, we see that Christ is the finish line. Someday at the end of our lives when all is said and done for us, we will meet Jesus face to face and be accountable for our actions. Christ is the finish line. We are living with that finish line as our focus. While sin distracts, there is a process of sanctification that makes us more like Jesus. So that at some point we could hear those words, well done, good and faithful servant. As we begin to wrap up our time together, we're going to observe communion. So, if you'll pull out the uh communion cup that's either on your seat or at the seat in front of you. It's a reminder for us of the words of Isaiah 53 that Jesus body was broken for us. As a matter of fact, even 1 Peter 2 would say it this way that Jesus bore our sins. And don't miss this. When we celebrate the the body and the blood of Christ, it is no small thing that we are being reminded of Jesus sacrifice who even gives us the ability to be restored back to God. It's because he took our sins past, present, and future and took all of the punishment for us that you and I could be restored back to God. We observe communion monthly so that we can be focused on that because that is absolutely at the center of our faith and is the finish line. So what I want to encourage you to do as we prepare to observe these elements is to begin to open them and to consider the fact that it is Jesus who is at the finish line for us. We find the words of 1 Corinthians 11 to be hopeful. It's Jesus at the Lord's supper. It's it's the first observation of communion. Jesus is with his disciples and as a matter of fact, the reminder of us being mere humans. Jesus is sitting there with his disciples, one of which who would betray him in a matter of hours for a couple of bucks. Still at the table, Jesus invites them into this moment. And then in verse 24, Jesus is with the disciples, he took the bread and when he had given thanks, broke it and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." He continues there, foreshadowing what would happen in just a few hours. He takes the cup after supper and said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And it is this that sets the stage for our worship together. We're going to sing a song about gratitude. And it's because of Jesus sacrifice that we can be thankful that we can enter into worship. And so let me pray for you as we prepare to enter into our final set of worship. God, we come to you understanding that you are the creator and sustainer of all life. That you are on your throne, that you are worthy of all of our praise. God, our prayer today is that we would remind be reminded that we can forgive others because it it is you who first forgave us. You initiated that forgiveness. And God, we are so thankful that you chose to forgive us, to give us a an opportunity to be restored back to you. So God, our prayer today is that we would remember that forgiveness and out of that be able to resolve to forgive others. God, I pray that a spirit of gratitude would fill us as we leave this place today. Pray all this in your name. Amen. Let's stand and sing the words of this song. All my words fall short. I got nothing. How could I express all my gratitude? I could sing these songs as I often do. Every song must do. So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again cuz all that I have is a hallelujah. [Music] And I know it's not much. I'm nothing else fit for a king except for a heart singing hallelujah. Hallelujah. [Music] I've got one response. I've got just one move. With my arms stretched wide, I will worship you. So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again. [Music] Cuz all that I have is a hallelujah. Hallelu. [Music] And I know it's not much. I'm nothing else fit for a king except for a heart singing hallelu. Hallelujah. [Music] So come on my soul. Oh, don't you get child me. Lift up your song cuz you've got a lion inside of those lungs. Get up and praise the Lord. Sing that again. Oh, come on my soul. Oh, don't jig it. Shout me. Lift up your song cuz you've got a lion inside of those lungs. Get up and praise the Lord. Oh, come on. Come on. Come on. Come on, my soul. Oh, don't you get shout me. Lift up your song cuz you've got a lion inside of those lungs. Get up and praise the Lord. [Music] [Music] Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. [Music] Oh, [Music] praise the Lord. Oh, [Music] so I throw up my hands and praise you again and again. Cuz all that I have is a hallelujah. Hallelujah. And I know it's not much. I'm nothing else fit for a king except for a heart singing hallelujah. [Music] Hallelu. So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again. Cuz all that I have is a hallelu. [Music] And I know it's not much. I'm nothing else fit for a king except for a heart singing hallelujah. Hallelu. [Music] Hey, thank you guys so much for joining us today. Hope you guys have a great week. See you guys next week.